141–150 of 213 posts
How many of the funders breached federal or state mandated limits on spending? I ask, because in the "brexit" circumstances it becomes clear the "leave" campaign eggregiously breached the declared public advertising spending limits through use of indirect/third-party funding channels who did placement in social media.
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So how do you get your message out without spending money? Do you only consider it freedom of speech if no one has a chance of hearing you? Spending money is how people with novel ideas expose it to more people and can hope to compete against established ideas that don’t need to be marketed.
Have you lobbied? Testified? Written to any of your representatives? Does't cost much. Is pretty effective. Huge sums of money is really only needed for GOTV and propaganda.
Please explain how the actions you list have any chance of successfully promoting anything but already popular ideas.
And would it be okay for Fox News or CNN to engage in propaganda, and spend billions of dollars on it, as long as it’s under the guise of journalism? Are judges going to start ruling on what is propaganda and what is news?
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Actually that’s exactly what it would do. Citizens United was about the government banning a film because it was illegal campaign spending.
No, banning money would make campaign spending illegal for any reason.
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But relatedly, money being treated as speech is antithetical to a functioning republic democracy.
So how do you get your message out without spending money? Do you only consider it freedom of speech if no one has a chance of hearing you? Spending money is how people with novel ideas expose it to more people and can hope to compete against established ideas that don’t need to be marketed.
They could be upset about paying money directly or indirectly to the poiticians.
i.e. perhaps it is fine spending money trying to lecture politicians, but not giving the money to politicians and policymakers.
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And here in thinking that this is a free speech issue. It seems to me that this law is unconstitutional. I don't have an issue with having to track tv ads, as they air over a public spectrum. But as on other media shouldn't be restricted. I wonder if this issue will come down to that?
Internet is also publicly available. Even if you'd argue that home connection costs $$$, internet is available for free in libraries. It's as public as TV, which is frequently paid too.
The airwaves are actually viewed as a collectively owned resource that is managed by the government. You own a slice of spectrum in a somewhat real way. You dont own any part if the internet except your home networking equipment.
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So how do you get your message out without spending money? Do you only consider it freedom of speech if no one has a chance of hearing you? Spending money is how people with novel ideas expose it to more people and can hope to compete against established ideas that don’t need to be marketed.
What if people are not upset about spending money on the activity of lobbying, or getting your message out, or spending money traveling to D.C. ? They could be upset about paying money directly or indirectly to the poiticians. i.e. perhaps it is fine spending money trying to lecture politicians, but not giving the money to politicians and policymakers.
Honestly, I think the best system is to just allow unlimited donations directly to candidates, with full disclosure.
Money isn’t actually that much of a problem in my opinion. Look at how much Jeb spent in the primaries, only to get savaged by Trump, who spent barely anything.
The general control of politics by the “rich and powerful” isn’t because they spend money on campaigns, it’s because the social class represented by them, the top 20% (college-educated professionals, typically working in large urban areas), controls culture, media, ideas, and expertise. Regulatory capture doesn’t happen because of corruption, but because the people with the expertise tend to be the ones who work in the industry being regulated.
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> If the problem is that money can buy unlimited federal power, then you can limit the federal powers available for purchase without curtailing the freedom of the citizenry to engage in political speech as they choose. I may be missing something obvious, but how do you suggest this could be done?
There are a lot of ways. For one, an adversarial congress is a feature, not a bug. We've seen already that as congress has become more polarized, lobbyist dollars have moved from federal to state in droves. Limit the scope and power of the Interstate Commerce Clause. Most modern interpretations are based on Wickard v. Fillburn's "Well, if everybody did it, it might affect interstate commerce" interpretation, which I…
The central tenet is "If money can be used to buy votes, then how do you have a democracy?"
Nothing you've said above seems to address that, nor anything I can think of, in a world with an absolute right to spend money to promote ones own or preferred speech.
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Have you lobbied? Testified? Written to any of your representatives? Does't cost much. Is pretty effective. Huge sums of money is really only needed for GOTV and propaganda.
“Propaganda” is just a pejorative way of describing attempts to persuade people of something you don’t like. Please explain how the actions you list have any chance of successfully promoting anything but already popular ideas. And would it be okay for Fox News or CNN to engage in propaganda, and spend billions of dollars on it, as long as it’s under the guise of journalism? Are judges going to start ruling on what is…
I encourage you to head to your closest legislative body (city hall, county council, state legislature), just to see what they're doing. (In person.) If something's on the agenda that piques your interest, sign-in to speak.
Then keep doing it.
There's got to be something under discussion that warms your belly. Once you find it:
Call any of your reps (city, county, state, federal) and ask for a 5 min appointment. Show up with a one pager summary of your position. Show up, say "Hi!", thank them for their service (even if you don't mean it), hand them your paper, tell them why your issue is important to you. See what happens.
Or just figure out when your locals are doing public meetings, town halls, events. Just show up, see what other people are working on. For example, my state reps have a joint monthly beer & hotdog event. Maybe 20-50 people show up (depending on the weather) and talk about whatever. I love just eavesdropping, seeing what people are working on.
Then take it to the next level. Find your allies. Get them to support your position. For instance, you could have your local party (whatever flavor) pass resolutions, which you then bring to your reps, to demonstrate support for your position.
Policy work is a tough marathon. But anyone can do it. Just hang out, note who gets things done, copy their methods. Camp Wellstone has a road show for activist training, which is fantastic. Many many other orgs do the same.
Good luck.
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“Propaganda” is just a pejorative way of describing attempts to persuade people of something you don’t like. Please explain how the actions you list have any chance of successfully promoting anything but already popular ideas. And would it be okay for Fox News or CNN to engage in propaganda, and spend billions of dollars on it, as long as it’s under the guise of journalism? Are judges going to start ruling on what is…
So you haven't lobbied? I encourage you to head to your closest legislative body (city hall, county council, state legislature), just to see what they're doing. (In person.) If something's on the agenda that piques your interest, sign-in to speak. Then keep doing it. There's got to be something under discussion that warms your belly. Once you find it: Call any of your reps (city, county, state, federal) and ask for a…